Related papers: The Advanced Compton Telescope Mission
The study of planets and small bodies within our Solar System is fundamental for understanding the formation and evolution the Earth and other planets. Compositional and meteorological studies of the giant planets provide a foundation for…
The planned Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a future observatory for very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray astronomy composed of one site per hemisphere. It aims at 10 times better sensitivity, a better angular resolution and wider energy…
Jets associated with Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) have been observed for almost a century, initially at optical and radio wavelengths. They are now widely accepted as "exhausts" produced electromagnetically by the central, spinning, massive…
The next generation of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) will open the regime between approx. 30 GeV and 200 GeV to ground-based gamma observations with unprecedented point source sensitivity and source location accuracy. I…
The primary scientific goal of the GRIPS mission is to revolutionize our understanding of the early universe using gamma-ray bursts. We propose a new generation gamma-ray observatory capable of unprecedented spectroscopy over a wide range…
A breakthrough in the sensitivity level of the hard X-/gamma-ray telescopes, which today are based on detectors that view the sky through (or not) coded masks, is expected when focusing optics will be available also in this energy range.…
The first 42 elements of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA-42) are beginning to deliver data at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Northern California. Scientists and engineers are actively exploiting all of the flexibility designed into this…
Ground-based telescopes coupled with adaptive optics (AO) have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the…
High energy photons from astrophysical sources are unique probes for some predictions of candidate theories of Quantum Gravty (QG). In particular, imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) are instruments optimised for astronomical…
Although the MeV gamma-ray band is a promising energy-band window in astrophysics, the current situation of MeV gamma-ray astronomy significantly lags behind those of the other energy bands in angular resolution and sensitivity. An…
The observation of high-energy extraterrestrial neutrinos is one of the most promising future options to increase our knowledge on non-thermal processes in the universe. Neutrinos are e.g. unavoidably produced in environments where…
The European collaboration ANTARES aims at operating a large deep-sea neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean sea. The detection of high-energy cosmic neutrino can improve our knowledge on the most powerful astrophysical sources in the…
The operation of the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next generation of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs), as an Open Observatory requires data products and analysis tools to be accessible and usable by the…
As part of a study funded by NASA Headquarters, we are developing a Probe-class mission concept called the Cosmic Evolution Through UV Spectroscopy (CETUS). CETUS includes a 1.5-m aperture diameter telescope with a large field-of-view…
Nuclear physics offers us a powerful tool: using nuclear resonance absorption lines to infer the physical conditions in astrophysical settings which are otherwise difficult to deduce. Present-day technology provides an increase in…
ANTARES is a project aiming at the operation of an underwater detector at a depth of 2.5 km close to Toulon in the South of France. The detector is expected to be completed at the beginning of 2007. The main purpose of the experiment is the…
Gamma-ray observations give us a direct view into the most extreme environments of the universe. They help us to study astronomical particle accelerators as supernovae remnants, pulsars, active galaxies or gamma-ray bursts and help us to…
A setup designed to study photonuclear reactions at astrophysical energies - an active target Time Projection Chamber was developed and constructed at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. The device was successfully employed in two…
Observing the ultraviolet (UV) sky for time-variable phenomena is one of the many exciting science goals that can be achieved by a relatively small aperture telescope in space. The Near Ultraviolet Transient Surveyor (NUTS) is a wide-field…
This chapter outlines the general principles for the detection and characterisation of high-energy $\gamma$-ray photons in the energy range from MeV to GeV. Applications of these fundamental photon-matter interaction processes to the…